Friday, May 13, 2016

Staunton, May 13 – The Russian way
of war is very different from the American way, Yevgeny Krutikov says. In the
past, the weaknesses of one side were balanced by those of the other. But now,
as even some in the West acknowledge, the Russian model at the tactical level
“threatens the US” because the Western model is based on aviation support of
ground troops.

In a frightening because so calmly
expressed article in today’s “Vzglyad,” the longtime Russian military
commentator says that the West has become accustomed over the last three
decades to relatively easy victories over secondary powers based on airpower
and thus has not developed its military strategy to cope with a major one (vz.ru/politics/2016/5/13/810243.html).

But now there is a growing
realization among Western commanders, Krutikov says, that “the lack of
correspondence between Russian and NATO’s military strategy for land forces” is
not only large but does not guarantee the quick and easy kind of Western
victories many expected or make NATO’s moves around Russia’s periphery entirely
sensible.

What makes this article so
disturbing is that it suggests that some in the Russian capital are now
thinking about a real war with the West, not at the level of the bombastic
propaganda of the political leadership and the media but rather in terms of the
specific moves that could give Russian forces the advantage or even a victory.

Because Krutikov points to Russian victories
in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and to its successful projection of
force and re-orientation of Damascus’ military strategy and tactics in Syria,
his words suggest that there are at least some in the Russian high command who
think they could win against NATO, thus making a Russian challenge to it more
likely.

But what matters most about this
article is not whether it is true – and parts seem overstated – but rather
whether those in and near the Kremlin believe its claims and thus are prepared
to act on them in the Baltic countries, Georgia or elsewhere.

Krutikov begins his article by
noting that since the cold war, computer-assisted games have been the basis in
the West for testing tactical and strategic ideas and coming up with doctrine.
But “the main problem” with such an approach is that both the red and the blue
teams are “people with a similar approach and style of thinking.”

Recently, he continues, NATO
officials were surprised, even shocked by the fact that American officers who
were assigned to play the “red” or Russian side behaved far differently than
was expected.These people conducted
themselves “extremely aggressively, especially in offensive actions.”

At the same time, those officers
assigned to the “blue” or NATO team “acted slowly and cautiously.” And thus while “the reds” advanced quickly
without paying too much attention to their losses, “the blues” focused on how
to avoid those and did less well in terms of achieving their objectives.

But what is “the most interesting
thing” about these new games is that “the losses of the attacking ‘reds’ turned
out to be significantly smaller than the losses of the careful ‘blues’ who
sought to avoid excessive casualties.”In short, Krutikov says, “the ‘reds’ began to win. Always. [And] often
very quickly.”

Some analysts in response to this
began talking about the mysteries of the Russian soul, but more thoughtful
commentators focused on three major aspects of Russian tactical doctrine that
has evolved over the last several decades.They are:

·“First, Russians clearly acknowledge that in
war people are killed and there is no practical sense of slowing down an attack
operation because of each tank put out of commission. Vacillation in the final
analysis leads to defeat and as a result to still larger losses.”

·“Second, support and reinforcement should be
given to those units and those directions which achieve success” instead of the
Western practice of reinforcing those which are in trouble.

·“Third, the Russian side devotes enormous
important to massed support of the attack by artillery” and recognizes that “for
the foreseeable future,” Moscow may not be fighting in places where it has air
superiority.”

“The
basic error of Atlanticist doctrines was and remains arrogance,” Krutikov
argues, and the assumption that airpower can always be called in to defeat any
land operation. But Russia’s successes
in Georgia and the Donbas, both promoted by these principles, show that
confidence is unwarranted because Russian anti-aircraft weaponry eliminated
this advantage.

“Russian
military doctrine (not in its written politicized variant but in practice) over
the last 15 years has evolved significantly,” Krutikov says, “while American
(and NATO as a whole) remain in the framework they had in the 1980s and 1990s.”
And that gives Russia an advantage in any conflict as recent events in Syria
demonstrate.

American
military thinks still focus on their accustomed “short air war against
countries of the third world” and assume that putting a few tanks in Georgia or
some personnel in the Baltic countries will be enough to trigger a Western air
response against any Russian moves against NATO -- without thinking about what would happen if Russian forces eliminated
the West’s air superiority at the start of any such conflict.

“No one is saying that we expect such a
clash, butno one has cancelled the
general state of readiness. The war games which are taking place in the Pentagon
confirm this,” the military analyst concludes, noting that “in Russia [such
games] are also being conducted. Only the goals are entirely different.”